Getting Started with FamilyHub

Welcome to FamilyHub. This guide walks you through logging in for the first time, setting up your family, and creating your first tasks and lists.

First-time setup (self-hosted)

On a brand-new deployment the first browser visit drops you on the Super Admin setup screen — you pick a username, a password, and optionally a display name. That account becomes the platform's system administrator: it can create, delete, and inspect families across the whole deployment. You only do this once.

If you're joining an already-set-up deployment, skip this — your family admin creates your account and hands you the credentials.

Logging in

Open the FamilyHub PWA in your browser. You can install it to your home screen ("Add to Home Screen" on iOS, "Install app" in Chromium). The login screen accepts username + password; sessions are signed JWT tokens with an auto-refresh loop, so you stay logged in on trusted devices without re-entering your password.

Forgot your password? An admin on your family can reset it for you — see Admin guide. You can change your own password anytime from Profile > Change password.

User roles

FamilyHub has three roles:

• User — dashboard, shopping lists, tasks, calendar, AI assistant. All family members.
• Family Admin — everything a User can do, plus manage family members, configure services (AI / speech-to-text / calendar / slideshow), and adjust family preferences like language and dashboard style.
• Super Admin — deployment-level administrator. Manages every family on the platform, can see trial status and usage across tenants. Not a per-family role.

Setting up your family

As a Family Admin, go to Admin > Users:

• Add a member — pick a username, set a temporary password for them to change, assign a role
• Edit a member — rename, change role, reset password
• Upload a profile picture — members can upload their own avatar from their profile page, or an admin can do it for them. Avatars show up everywhere members appear (task assignees, creator pills, dashboard).

FamilyHub doesn't use email-based invite links — accounts are created directly by the family admin. If you want members to set their own password on first login, create the account with a one-time password and ask them to change it.

Your first task

Go to Tasks > New task. Give it a title, optionally assign it to a family member, pick a priority (Low, Medium, or High), and a due date.

For recurring chores, flip on recurrence and pick a pattern. The frequency x interval combination is flexible — you can combine any unit with any interval from 1 to 99:

• Daily with an interval — "every 3 days", "every day"
• Weekly with specific weekdays — "every Monday and Thursday"
• Weekly with an interval — "every 2 weeks" (bi-weekly), "every 3 weeks"
• Monthly with an interval — "every 2 months" (bi-monthly), "every 3 months" (quarterly), "every month"
• Yearly — "every year"

Recurring tasks generate concrete instances 14 days ahead automatically, so completing today's instance doesn't pre-complete next week's. The hub display and dashboard only show instances whose due-date window has started.

Your first shopping list

Navigate to Shopping lists. A default list named Boodschappen (groceries) is always present — you can't delete it. Create additional named lists for specific trips ("IKEA", "Gamma", "Action"): these can be archived when you're done.

Add items three ways:

• Type into the text bar at the bottom of the list
• Type into the AI input bar: "voeg melk toe" / "add milk"
• Tap the microphone and speak: "voeg melk, eieren en brood toe"

Every family member sees changes in real time over the WebSocket — no refresh needed. Items get auto-assigned to a category (Zuivel, Groente & Fruit, Vlees & Vis, etc.) based on their name; uncategorized items land in Overig and a background job sweeps periodically to recategorize them. See Shopping lists for the full list of categories.

Configuring services

As a Family Admin, go to Admin > Services to wire up the integrations. Each one has a Test button that hits the configured endpoint and reports the result.

• AI — Anthropic Claude or OpenAI. Needed for the voice/text assistant and for shopping-list auto-categorisation.
• Speech-to-text — OpenAI Whisper API or a self-hosted faster-whisper endpoint.
• CalDAV — your Radicale server, for the shared calendar.
• Slideshow — Google Photos public-album URL or Immich server, for the kitchen hub's idle animation.

On self-hosted deployments you can also set any of these via environment variables; the UI just lets you override per-family.

Family-wide preferences

Admin > Settings controls family-level defaults:

• Language — NL or EN. Switches the UI, AI prompts, and STT model in one go. See Multilingual support.
• Dashboard style — Classic (interactive, tap-to-complete) or Ambient (glanceable, large clock). See Hub display.
• Task history limit — how many completed task instances to keep on the history view. Defaults to 10.

Backup, export, and import

FamilyHub can export your whole family's data (users, lists, tasks, calendar events, recipes, preferences) as a single file you can store yourself or import into another deployment. Admin > Data > Export / Data > Import. See Admin guide for the operator view.

Next steps

Now that the basics are wired, the good stuff:

• Shared calendar — add events from FamilyHub, your phone's calendar app (CalDAV), or by importing an ICS file
• AI assistant — voice + text commands, how intent parsing works, privacy notes
• Hub display — mount a tablet on the kitchen wall; Classic vs Ambient modes
• Real-time sync — how WebSocket updates work and what happens when you go offline